The City Of Chester.

stone, in the Gothic style, the spire one hundred and twenty-four feet from the ground. The main door was approached by a flight of stone steps, one of which was the slab which had formerly covered the remains of Robert French, one of the descendants of Jöran Kyn, the founder of Chester, and to-day is one of the flagging in the sidewalk to the Sunday-school, on the east side of the church.

The church was opened Sunday, May 4, 1851, Rev. Mr. Balch officiating. But it appears not to have been consecrated by Bishop Potter until Tuesday, Dec. 23, 1851. Bishop Lee preached the consecration sermon. Drs. Suddards and Balch, and Revs. Messrs. Bean, Ridgely, Huntington, Micheson, Hawes, and Hand were present and officiated on that occasion. The constant growth of our busy city, and the increase in the number of the worshipers, soon began to tax the seating capacity of the new structure, and for several years after the close of the war it became evident that additional room must be provided to meet this want. In 1872 the demand was so imperative that the congregation determined that the church building must be remodeled, and steps were taken promptly to carry out that end. On Sunday, June 14, 1872, services were held in the sanctuary for the last time previous to the changes being made, and for ten months the edifice was closed during the alterations. The south end of the church was demolished, and a new addition, considerably increasing the seating capacity, a handsome Gothic front of Ridley granite, sepentine, and Cleveland stone combined, which approaches closely to the sidewalk, and a towering steeple and belfry erected. On Sunday, April 13, 1873, the congregation renewed religious services in St. Paul's, and Rev. Henry Brown, the rector, preached a historical sermon.

During a heavy thunder-storm, on Sunday, June 3, 1877, the lightning struck the rod on the steeple, and in its descent the electric fluid unloosened the water-pipe where it was attached to the wall, below the eaves, and making a round hole through the mortar of the solid masonry, it entered the church, ran along the gas-pipe, tore a hole in the plaster, and again forced its way between the joints of the stone wall, to the outside of the building, and thence to the ground.

In 1883 the church was thoroughly repaired, handsomely frescoed and decorated. On Sunday afternoon, March 9, 1884, it. caught fire from a defective flue. The damage on that occasion exceeded two thousand dollars.

John Hill Martin, in his "History of Chester," gives the following list of ministers of St. Paul's from 1702 to the present time: Revs. Evan Evans, 1702-4; Henry Nichols, 1704-8; George Ross, 1708-14; John Humphreys, 1714-26; Samuel Hesselius, 1726-28; Richard Backhouse, 1728-49; Thomas Thompson, 1751; Israel Acrelius, 1756; George Craig, 1758-81; James Conner, 1788-91; Joseph Turner, 1791-93; Levi Heath, 1796-98; Joshua Reece, 1803-5; William Pryce, 1815-18; Jacob Morgan Douglass, 1818-22; Richard Umstead Morgan, 1822-31; John Baker Clemson, D.D., 1831-35; Richard D. Hall, 1735-37; Mortimer Richmond Talbot, 1837-41; Greenberry W. Ridgely, 1842-43; Anson B. Hard (associate rector), 1844-48; Charles W. Quick, 1849-50; Lewis P. W. Balch, D.D., 1850-53 (resigned, and removed to Virginia); Nicholas Sayre Harris, 1852-55 (Mr. Harris was a graduate of West Point); Daniel Kendig, 1855-59; M. Richard Talbot, 1859-61; J. Pinckney Hammond, 1861-63; Henry Brown, 1863.

In the wall of the Bible-class room, in the basement of the church, is the Sandelands tablet. The stone is disintegrating, and in a few years will crumble away.

James Sandelands, the elder, was a Scotchman, and there is some reason to believe that his father was Capt. Jacob Everson Sandelyn (the name perhaps incorrectly spelled by the early annalists), who, as master of the ship "Scotch Dutchman," visited the Swedish settlements on the Delaware in the year 1646, and sold to the Governor "duffel-cloth and other goods" to the value of two thousand five hundred guilders. His mother, we know, lived here in February, 1683, for she is mentioned in the trial of Margaret Mattson, of Ridley, for witchcraft. The first allusion to James Sandelands is in the patent of Aug. 6, 1665, "for two lots of land in Upland at Delaware, upon the North side of the creek or kill." On June 13, 1670, patents were granted to him for two other lots similarly situated, adjoining the property of his father-inlaw, Jöran Keen.

In a deed in 1680 he is designated as "merchant," but there is no evidence to show what particular goods he dealt in, excepting a record that having purchased tobacco in Maryland, which was not delivered according to agreement, "a Certayne great Boate or Siallop," belonging to the delinquent consignor, was attached and "publicqly sould." The records of the early courts show that he frequently appeared as attorney for the suitors before that tribunal. In 1677 he is mentioned as the only person on the Delaware River, from Upland northwardly, who owned a slave, and is recorded as one of the "responsible housekeepers" at this place. He was appointed by Col. William Markham one of the Deputy Governor's Council in 1681, and was constituted one of the justices of the newly-organized Upland court. From 1688 to 1690 he was a member of the General Assembly of the province of Pennsylvania. James Sandelands died April 12, 1692, aged fifty-six years. I have given a brief notice of this early colonist because St. Paul's was a memorial church, erected to keep him in the recollection of the inhabitants of Chester, wherein he had passed a busy and enterprising life.

His wife, Ann, after a brief widowhood, married Peter Baynton, who subsequently abandoned her and returned to England, leaving her in such destitute